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F55 
Jopy 1 



Views on 

Military Preparedness 

as Modified by the 

Texas Campaign 



y 



COLONEL MILTON J. FOREMAN 
MAJOR ABEL DAVIS 



Prom the proceedings of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Meeting of 

The Commercial Club of Chicago, at The Blackstone, 

Saturday Evening, December 9, 1916 



Views on Military Preparedness 

as Modified by the Texas 

Campaign 



ADDRESSES 



PRESENTING AN OBSERVATION OF THE RECENT MOBILI- 
ZATION OF THE NATIONAL GUARD OF THE 
UNITED STATES ON THE BORDER, 
WITH LESSONS DRAWN 
THEREFROM 



BY 

COLONEL MILTON J. FOREMAN 
MAJOR ABEL DAVIS 




Fi'om the proceedings of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Meeting of 

The Commercial Club of Chicago, at The Blackstone, 

Saturday Evening, December 9, 1916 






The ^XhX^e House. 



THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 
OF CHICAGO 



The Commercial Club, Organized 1887 

The Merchants Club, Organized 1896 

United 1907 



Chicago, December i8, 1916. 

SHORTLY before the mobilization of the National 
Guard on the border the Commercial Club of Chicago 
invited officers of Chicago regiments to address the 
members on the all-important subject of national defense. 
The Club had already obtained from Major General Leonard 
A. Wood the view of the regular army. 

Following the return of the Chicago troops from the 
border the Club, at its meeting of December 9, 1916, invited 
Colonel Milton J. Foreman of the First Cavalry, Illinois 
National Guard, and Major Abel Davis of the First Infantry, 
Illinois National Guard, to give their views on military pre- 
paredness as modified by the Texas campaign. 

The Commercial Club, as an organization embracing the 
large commercial interests of Chicago, the desire of which 
is to promote in every way possible the well-being of the 
community and of the nation, had co-operated with the 
Chicago regiments both before and during the mobilization. 
This troop movement had, for the first time, brought the 
Guardsmen together in number. It had given the officers 
of the Guard an opportunity to see what the country could 
expect of the state troops in case of war. The members of 
the Club desired to inform themselves as to the opinion 



resulting from this demonstration of the strength and weak- 
ness of our present system with a view to aiding in the 
creation of a rational military system in place of the chaotic 
condition now existing. 

The addresses of Colonel Foreman and of Major Davis 
contain observations and suggestions of value. They have 
been reprinted in this booklet for distribution in the hope 
that they will help bring to the public a clearer understand- 
ing of the difficulties and possibilities of the problem now 
confronting all Americans. 

Jas. B. Forgan, 

President. 



MAJOR ABEL DAVIS 
First Infantry, Illinois National Guard 

THE RECENT experience of our Government on the 
Mexican border demonstrated the essential weak- 
nesses of our miHtary system. I shall attempt to point 
these out, indicate some of the contributing causes and make 
bold to suggest a plan for a military system. It is dignify- 
ing these suggestions to refer to them in the aggregate as 
"a plan." Any thorough plan for a military system must 
take into consideration not only strictly military matters, 
but industrial conditions as they may affect our military 
policy. I shall make no reference to the necessary changes 
in our industrial organization in aid of our military require- 
ments, nor shall I speak of the facilities for producing a 
greater number of army officers, and the organization of our 
forces, and their division into the different arms of the 
service. Neither shall I speak of any plan for the equip- 
ment of the army ; the required number of field guns, aero- 
planes, poison gas generators and other machinery of war, 
essential for military operations. The only feature of the 
general plan to be presented by me is the one dealing with 
the military training of our men and the raising of men in 
required number for the army of the United States. 

I shall refer to the recent mobilization only as it em- 
phasizes the weakness of the system. Our regiment, the 
First Illinois Infantry, answered the call of the President 
and reported at Fort Sam Houston. The experience gained 
by the regiment in Texas was valuable, but the time, energy 
and money expended did not produce in results the possible 
maximum. 



6 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

The following were the chief contributing causes : 

(1) Excessive number of recruits, totally without mili- 

tary training. 

(2) Lack of army officers detailed as instructors. 

(3) Lack of a definite plan for training National Guard 

troops for war service. 

(4) Lack of facilities for handling the large bodies of 

National Guardsmen called into the federal 
service. 

(5) The cumbersome and wasteful method of chang- 

ing the status of troops from state to federal 
control and their return to state control. 

(1) It has been the theory of our Government to have 
the army and the National Guard organized on a skeleton 
basis, known as peace strength, which in time of war was to 
be increased to regular size or war strength. As a matter 
of actual experience neither the army nor the National 
Guard has ever succeeded in recruiting up to peace strength, 
with the result that the addition of untrained men is greater 
than contemplated in theory, with a proportionate lowering 
of the efficiency of the fighting unit. 

The numerical strength of the First Infantry was 1,200, 
of which number 500 were inexperienced recruits, enlisted 
subsequent to the President's call. Had we been able to 
comply with the wishes of the War Department to recruit 
the regiment to war strength, as it was then known, we 
would have had 700 recruits in a regiment of 1,400, or 
one untrained man for every trained, or, to be more 
accurate, partially trained man. While the units of Euro- 
pean armies are increased in strength in time of war, such 
increase is at a much lower ratio than ours and is entirely 
of trained men from the reserves. We, on the other hand, 
have placed reliance on the willingness of men to respond in 
war time, ignoring the fact that patriotism, although ex- 
pressed by willingness to serve, will not and cannot take 
the place of that essential training which fits men for war 
service. 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 7 

The ultimate object of all military training is to produce 
the highest degree of efficiency on the firing line ; obedience 
to orders in face of death — an obedience unquestioning and 
instantaneous. Production of this efficiency has becom© 
more difficult as war has become more terrifying. The 
half-trained recruit who would have done well in '61 would 
be useless and dangerous in modern warfare. This being 
true, for us to continue to rely on untrained men, no matter 
how great their number, is suicidal. 

(2) There was one regular army officer with the rank 
of captain detailed as instructor for our entire brigade, 
consisting of approximately 3,600 men. To my knowledge 
he had any number of days with eighteen working hours. 
He supervised the administrative work of' the brigade and 
its regiments, provided drill schedules, arranged maneuvres, 
made inspections. But his incessant labors were not pro- 
ductive of great results because of the superhuman task 
assigned to him. 

(3) Such benefit as the National Guard received from 
the last mobilization was in spite of the failure of the 
Government to provide a definite program of training. Each 
army officer acting as instructor was obliged to exercise his 
own judgment and ingenuity in such limited instruction as 
was within his power to give. 

(4) Army and National Guard officers were further 
handicapped by lack of facilities. The best illustration is 
our experience with target practice for recruits. The Gov- 
ernment maintains a very good rifle range at Leon Springs, 
Texas, equipped to meet the requirements of regular troops 
stationed at Fort Sam Houston. But did it serve the large 
number of National Guardsmen mobilized at the fort? 
Though we were away from our home station for three 
months and sixteen days it was not possible to allow our 
regiment more than three days on the range. Because of 
the congestion practice had to be limited in all regiments 
to men who had had no previous experience in this impor- 
tant branch of military knowledge. Two hours was the 



8 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

actual time spent by each recruit in trying to hit the target. 
Hardly sufficient to qualify him as an effective man on the 
firing line. 

(5) Over one-third of the time my regiment was away 
from its home station was spent in mustering it into and 
out of the federal service. Work during this period was 
nearly impossible. The criticism heaped upon the shoulders 
of the regular army mustering officers was unjust. They 
were following the system incorporated into a law which 
demanded — a cumbersome and unnecessary provision — that 
every piece of property belonging to the National Guard 
while in the state service be invoiced to the federal Govern- 
ment at the time of muster and its serviceability noted. Like- 
wise, on mustering out, each piece of property had to be 
invoiced back to the state, its condition being noted at the 
time of such transfer. Incidental to this property reckon- 
ing between the federal and state governments, each account- 
able officer had to clear his account with the federal and 
state governments. 

In the same way every man who had been found by a 
medical examination to be physically fit for state service 
was re-examined to discover if he was fit for federal service. 
On being mustered out he was examined again. The Gov- 
ernment refused to rely on state examinations and justified 
the last examination as necessary to ascertaining the man's 
condition as it might affect his claim for a pension. 

I have too much regard for your patience to drag you 
into the maze of difficulties regarding the oaths which the 
men have taken, should have taken, or are expected to take 
at this time, except to say this : The men who have returned 
from the border do not know the meaning of an additional 
oath at this time, nor understand its necessity. Many con- 
flicting interpretations have been given them regarding the 
effect of the latest oath. We tell them to exercise their own 
judgment regarding taking it and they prefer to wait. 

These are some of the difficulties which fell to the lot of 
the National Guardsmen who responded to a call to duty. 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 9 

On top of this they returned to their homes to find that, 
in some quarters at least, there is dissatisfaction with their 
conduct and even with their existence. Before sufficient 
time had elapsed for an analysis of the situation the cry 
was heard in many places for the abolition of the National 
Guard — the volunteer system must go — let us have com- 
pulsory universal service. 

The remedy prescribed is not specific, is not based on 
a thorough diagnosis and may hurt the patient. It represents 
the mental habit of the country — impatient, volatile : de- 
manding snap judgment and quick acting remedies. 

This attitude of the public mind has asserted itself in 
other phases of our municipal, state and national existence. 
In our own city we had a striking example of a man being 
elected to office on a platform of immediate municipal 
ownership and operation of our complicated transportation 
facilities, when as a matter of fact we did not know then, 
and do not know now, how to operate successfully the 
elevators of the city hall. 

Displeasure at the failure of legislators to respond to 
the popular clamor for certain legislation brought forth a 
demand for the initiative and referendum and in certain 
states the incorporation of the principle in the state con- 
stitution. 

Dissatisfaction with certain individual judges and the 
refusal of others to usurp the function of the lawmakers 
was responsible for the legal heresy of recall of judicial 
decisions and of the judges themselves. 

And now it is "compulsory universal military service" 
and the twin brother, "the abolition of the National Guard." 

I am not for compulsory universal military service in the 
sense in which the term implies that every young man of a 
certain age be taken away from school or work for a period 
of a year or two, put under arms and made a part of a 
huge standing army. I do favor a system which will 
compel every young man to undertake a certain amount of 
military training and will furnish the United States, not with 



10 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

a hired standing army, but with a National Army; an army 
consisting of all classes of people, and of.a size which our 
military experts, the general staff of the army, may deter- 
mine from time to time to be adequate. 

Here are some concrete suggestions which, in my opin- 
ion, should be incorporated in a plan for the military estab- 
lishment of the United States, and for the navy, with such 
modifications as that service may require. 

Active service in Cuba in 1898 as a member of my regi- 
ment, continued service and observation during the last 
nineteen years, and consultation with National Guardsmen 
and army officers, serve as a basis for the plan, the principal 
features of which are the following: 

(1) The military forces of the United States shall 
consist of: 

(a) National Army — the first line. 

(b) National Guard — the second line. 

(c) Reserve — the third line. 

(2) Every young man shall, upon the first day of July 
succeeding his nineteenth birthday, report to the United 
States Government officials in his congressional district for 
registration and examination. Each congressional district 
shall constitute a military administrative district. 

All young men who, after strict medical examination by 
United States surgeons, are found to be physically unfit for 
service, shall be excused and their names stricken from 
the lists. 

All young men who are found, by governmental investi- 
gation, to be the sole support of families shall also be 
excused from service with the first and second lines and 
shall go in the reserve in the first instance. 

(3) All men registered as qualified shall be listed in 
one of two classes : 

Class One : The first class shall consist of men who 
voluntarily put themselves in the way of securing 
a prescribed course of military training. The first 
class shall be divided as follows : 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS U 

(a) Men who shall at time of registration or prior 
thereto have become members of National Guard 
organizations approved by the War Department. 

(b) Men who have had two years of military train- 
ing in a military school or academy approved by 
the War Department, or men who shall, at the 
time of registration or prior thereto, have en- 
tered or agreed in writing to enter, the military 
corps of colleges or universities approved by the 
War Department, and agreed to take a prescribed 
course of military training of not less than two 
years. 

Class Two : The second class shall include all men on 
the qualified list who are not included in Class One. 
From Class Two recruits for the National Army 
shall be drawn in the first instance. 

(4) The War Department shall designate yearly the 
number of recruits required for the National Army in each 
congressional district, such recruits to be selected by lot 
from members of the second class, opportunity first being 
given for voluntary enlistment. If there is not a sufficient 
number in the second class the required number shall be 
drawn from the first class to fill the quota. 

(5) The term of service in the National Army shall be 
two years on the active list and thereafter in the reserve. 

(6) All members of the second class who shall not be 
mustered into the National Army shall become part of the 
reserve, as shall all members of the first class upon the 
completion of their respective prescribed courses of training. 

(7) Different grades of reserve shall be established, the 
grade depending on the nature of military service and ex- 
perience. The reserves shall be organized into military units 
with officers from the active or reserve lists. Each year 
for a brief period the military commander of each con- 
gressional district shall call the members of the reserve to 
the colors. The following divisions of the reserve shall 
be made : 



12 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

Reserve A : Men who have served two years in the 
National Army, or first Hne. 

Reserve B : Men who have served the required enHst- 
ment in National Guard organizations. 

Reserve C : Men who have received the required 
training in military schools, colleges and 
universities. 

Reserve D : Men who have been placed in the reserve 
without training. 

Reserve E : Men who are under training for quarter- 
master, commissary, hospital, technical and 
electrical service. 

Reserve F : Men excused for physical disability. This 
reserve would remain unorganized and not- 
subject to training, unless war were 
declared. 

(8) Failure to complete a course of enlistment of three 
years in the National Guard or two years of training in 
schools, colleges and universities in accordance with rules 
laid down by the War Department shall transfer a man from 
first to second class. 

(9) Penalties shall be provided for evasion of enlist- 
ment. 

Now, what are the advantages of the plan suggested? 
I shall point them out somewhat in detail. 

In the first place, every one except the physically unfit 
would receive military training in the army, the National 
Guard, schools, colleges, or the reserves. 

In the second place the plan would give the country an 
ever changing citizen army drawn on a fair and equitable 
basis from every class. It is presumable that a great many 
men would prefer to receive their training in the schools or 
National Guard, rather than in the National Army. While 
the expense of attending schools and college would deprive 
certain young men of military training at such institutions, 
service in the National Guard is open to all, rich and poor. 

Should the number preferring such voluntary service 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 13 

in the Guard or instruction in schools be so great as to leave 
the remainder in the second class, the class primarily avail- 
able for service in the National Army, inadequate to the 
needs of the army, the draft which would be made upon 
the schools and the Guard would be made by lot, impartially 
between the two. 

A hired mercenary army has no place in a free republic. 
Besides experience has shown the inability of the Govern- 
ment to attract enough men for an army of the required 
size. Our Government has gone to extremes and has em- 
ployed methods which would not be countenanced by reput- 
able business houses in advertising the attractiveness ot 
service in the regular army as it is now constituted. The 
fact that the Government is refusing to release men now 
in Texas whose term of enlistment has expired shows this 
to be a time of necessity when the army should be recruited 
to its full strength. And yet the present strength of the 
army is 35,000 below the authorized number. The Govern- 
ment cannot get the men. 

The flexibility of the plan is one of its features. The 
army becomes smaller or grows larger as international con- 
ditions appear to warrant. At the present time there can 
be no change in the size of the army without the enactment 
of special legislation. There is no time for such an enact- 
ment in an emergency. On the other hand, in case of a 
limitation of armies throughout the world, the American 
army could readily be reduced in accordance with the plan. 

The general staff of the army has estimated that for our 
purposes an army of 500,000 is required at this time. Two 
years' enlistment in the National Army would make the 
yearly requirement 250,000 men. There are 435 congres- 
sional districts. The yearly quota per district, therefore, 
would be but 500 men, a number so small as to make the 
interference with our industrial affairs negligible. 

The cost of maintaining a military establishment of the 
kind suggested would, of course, be considerably lower than 
the cost incident to a plan putting every man of a certain 



14 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

age with the colors for a period of two years. Under any 
plan thoughtful consideration will prompt a decision in 
favor of a two years' term of enlistment in the National 
A.rmy in order to give the country a good sized body of 
seasoned troops. It is estimated that between 900,000 and 
1,000,000 men yearly reach the age of nineteen. Making 
allowance for the physically unfit and for other losses, we 
would have a standing army of at least 1,500,000 if all 
were called into the first line. It is further estimated that 
the army costs our Government, on a yearly basis, $1,000 
per man. This would make the cost of maintaining such 
an army $1,500,000,000— an outlay for which we are not 
prepared. Under my plan approximately only every fourth 
man would go into the National Army. The others would 
receive their training in the National Guard, schools, col- 
leges and universities at a much lower cost. 

An important feature of the plan is the one which puts 
into the reserves all the able-bodied men of the country. 
The successful termination of a military conflict depends 
not only on the men in active service ready to take the field on 
short notice, but on the size of the reserve ready to take the 
place of the wastage in battle. The reserve to be effective 
must have not only individual, but what is more important, 
organizational training. 

Necessity in the first instance compelled Germany to 
realize the value of her reserve. When at Jena Napoleon 
shattered the Prussian army, he sought protection for the 
future by compelling Prussia to agree to limit its army to 
42,000 men. The illustrious Scharnhorst, without arousing 
Napoleon's suspicions, conceived the idea of replacing one 
group of young men, after a short service, with another 
group. The men leaving the army were carried by him as 
a reserve. 

Six years elapsed after the treaty of Tilsit and when 
1813 came, Prussia, with a population of five million inhabi- 
tants, mobilized, in evasion of the restrictions incorpo- 
rated in the Tilsit Treaty by Napoleon, 300,000 soldiers, 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 15 

250,000 of whom were the reserve created by Scharnhorst's 
genius. 

Today the reserves of Germany are contributing to her 
miHtary successes as Scharnhorst's reserves did to the de- 
feat of Napoleon. In fact, under the supreme test of to- 
day, the reserve system has proved to be Germany's great- 
est strength. 

Without discussing the different kinds of reserve troops 
and the transition from one state of reserve to another, I 
will bring to your attention the following tabulation which 
shows the number of fully trained reserves passing from 
peace to war footing as a part of the European armies at 
the beginning of the present war: 

France 2,300,000 

Germany 4,000,000 

Austria 1,600,000 

Russia 3,800,000 

Italy 1,250,000 

There is no necessity at this time for estimating the size 
of our reserve, but, under the plan, all would be in the 
reserve and would receive such training as would make them 
useful soldiers. 

Particular emphasis should be placed upon the fact that 
the appointment of a military commander for each con- 
gressional district would enable a register of all reserves 
to be kept up to the hour, with statistical information as to 
age, ability, line of service and other essentials, and above 
all, would enable the call of reserves to the colors to be 
enforced within a few hours, a matter of the first impor- 
tance in war. 

These positions would furnish useful employment for 
officers of the National Army who might otherwise be 
retired. 

As to schools : Since it would be the expectation of 
parents that in one way or another their sons would be 
called upon to undergo a course of military training, the 
parents would exercise their influence in providing a course 



16 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

of military training in all our schools and colleges. The 
by-products of military training in the school cannot be 
over-estimated. They are courage, self-reliance, obedience, 
responsibility and practical patriotism. Such training, though 
primarily for military use, must react with even greater 
benefit upon our civil life in an increased physical, moral 
and mental manliness and a higher standard of citizenship. 

Finally — a point which on a casual reading might not 
seem of great importance — the general disinclination of 
young men to serve in the National Army, as evidenced by 
their almost unanimous refusal to volunteer for such service, 
would automatically fill the ranks of National Guard, school 
and college military organizations, thus enabling the War 
Department to prescribe a thorough course of military 
training and to penalize any institution or organization that 
did not maintain the standard, by striking it from the list 
of approved military bodies, service in which would exempt 
a young man from conscription into the National Army. 

Because of this the plan would encourage enlistment in 
the National Guard and strengthen it in every way. We 
must at this point, therefore, answer the question : "Do we 
want a National Guard?" I, for one, feel strongly the 
necessity of preserving the institution of the Guard. It has 
proved its usefulness as an arm of the state in insuring 
domestic tranquility. What, I ask, would we do without 
the Guard in times of industrial outbreak? What would we 
have done at the time of the Springfield race riots? Then 
5,000 Guardsmen put a stop to disorder and saved both 
property and lives. What, again, would we have done at 
the time of the Cairo floods? We must have the Guard. 
Without it dozens of outbreaks would occur that are now 
restrained by the existence of the Guard. 

With a higher degree of efficiency, such as this plan 
would give it, the National Guard would rise to a broader 
field of usefulness to the state. But take away from the 
Guard its standing as a part of the federal army in case 
of war, and relegate it to the position of a state police force, 
and I say to you there will be no National Guard. 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 17 

The criticism that training in the National Guard regi- 
ments has been inefficient and failed to produce trained men 
is silenced by the provision suggested that all such training 
shall be under the supervision of the War Department and 
that only such men shall be exempt from the compulsory 
feature of the law as have received training in National 
Guard organizations whose course of training and standard 
of efficiency bear the approval of the War Department. 

Let the federal Government equip the National Guard ; 
let the equipment remain the property of the United States; 
let the accountability be direct from the regimental account- 
able officer to the federal Government, eliminating the 
necessity of transfer back and forth when the Guard is 
called into federal service ; let the Government supervise in 
the first instance the physical examination of recruits ; let 
army officers, at least one to a battalion, be detailed to the 
National Guard as instructors in times of peace ; let there 
be a definite plan for intensive training of the National 
Guard when called into service ; let provision be made in 
advance for all matters incident to mobilization ; let ample 
facilities be provided for the handling of large bodies of 
volunteer troops — and the National Guard with its demon- 
strated desire for service, will be an efficient and effective 
part of the mihtary establishment of the United States. 

I have stated the essentials of the plan and attempted to 
point out its effect. I now submit this plan to your thought- 
ful consideration. A plan, incomplete as to details, but 
insofar as fallible judgment may be trusted, a plan elastic, 
economical, practical ; a plan that is in keeping with the 
fundamentals which the forefathers wrote into the constitu- 
tion ; a plan that does not confound mercenary allegiance 
with the great force of patriotic sentiment. 



COLONEL MILTON J. FOREMAN 

First Cavalry, Illinois National Guard 

IN CONSIDERING the subject presented for discussion 
tonight and before touching upon an exposition of what 
it involves, in order to arrive at any conclusion, incon- 
clusive as it may be, it is necessary to pay some attention 
to what has happened since the National Defense Act, the 
so-called Hay bill, was passed, and how well founded some 
of the statements and conclusions are that have been born 
of the passage of that act, and the Mexican border duty of 
the National Guard. 

When last I had the privilege of addressing this Club 
there were two military bills under consideration in the 
House and Senate Committees of Congress. It will be 
recalled that each body finally passed its own bill and that 
in conference a deadlock ensued. It will be further remem- 
bered that the major and really the only important difference 
between the two bills related to what the authorized strength 
of the Regular Army should be. 

As I recall it, the House conferees favored a standing 
army of something over one hundred thousand men, while 
the Senate bill provided for an army of nearly three times 
that number. The conferees finally agreed upon an army 
of one hundred and eighty-five thousand men, the increase 
to be obtained in five annual increments, and in that form 
the bill was finally passed and became a law on June 3, 1916. 

Prior to the passage of that act, sometime in the early 
Spring of 1916, Congress, at the request of the President of 
the United States, passed an act authorizing and directing 
that the then existing units of the Army be enlisted to war 
strength, a total increase of twenty-six thousand men. 



20 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

Neither at the time of the passage of this act nor in the 
debates on the act of June 3rd, either in the House or 
Senate, was enforced service in the regular army discussed 
or touched upon. 

After the so-called Continental Army scheme was thrown 
into the scrap pile with the unanimous approval of every- 
body but the then Secretary of War, it was proposed to de- 
velop a second line force by federalizing the National Guard 
by placing it under the control of the War Department and 
under the command of the President of the United States; 
and the militia provisions of the National Defense Act of 
June 3rd are the results of these proposals. These pro- 
visions were viciously and bitterly opposed on the following 
grounds : 

First: It was urged that the so-called federalizing of 
the National Guard would never make it a force available 
or dependable in time of national need, because instead of 
having one supreme commander in the President of the 
United States, it would have forty-eight in the persons of 
the governors of the several states, and that each one would 
determine for himself whether the call of the President 
should be obeyed. 

Second: It was claimed that if the President called on 
the National Guard for war duty and the governors ac- 
quiesced, the members of the Guard would refuse to respond 
to the call. 

Let us see what the facts are, and in discussing them I 
propose to confine myself to things historically demonstrated. 
I shall not indulge in speculation or prophecy. 

The National Defense Act naturally divides itself into 
two parts ; that relating to the regular army, and that relat- 
ing to the National Guard. 

The two parts could well have been passed as separate 
acts because they are not dependent upon or in any way 
connected with one another. 

Let us assume that they were separate acts, and that 
the Regular Army Act provided for as large a number of 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 21 

soldiers for the regular army as the most extreme of the 
"large army" men advocated. Would the result since the 
passage of the bill have been different so far as the regular 
army is concerned? The act, so far as it relates to the 
regular army, was satisfactory to everybody except in regard 
to size. So bearing in mind that when the act was con- 
sidered, there was no hint or suggestion that the regular 
army should be recruited except by voluntary enlistment, 
no intimation of the desirability or necessity of enforced 
service, it must be admitted that the law, so far as the 
regular army is concerned, has failed to secure the desired 
number of soldiers, and although thousands of dollars were 
spent in advertising and other propaganda, neither the 
authorized increment, nor the twenty-six thousand men 
authorized in the earlier act were obtained. 

I ask you to remember that this section has nothing to 
do with, and that its failure cannot be imputed to, the militia 
sections of the act. 

As a matter of fact, new units of the regular army were 
formed under the National Defense Act by the simple ex- 
pedient of taking their components from old organizations. 
For example, the Sixteenth Cavalry was made by taking 
part of the body of the Third Cavalry ; and the Thirty-sixth 
Infantry was made by taking part of the body of the Fourth 
Infantry, and that was the rule wherever new units were 
created. 

The regular army features must stand by themselves. 
They have failed and that failure is the failure of the army 
to secure the men. 

Now let us pass to the portion of the act which has 
been most vigorously and viciously attacked, namely the 
federalizing of the National Guard. As I stated before, 
those opposing the federalizing of the National Guard and 
the payment of its members, did so upon two general 
grounds ; first, that the President of the United States could 
not exert the necessary authority over forty-eight governors, 
who nominally controlled the Guard of the several states, 



22 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

and second, that when a call came for war service the mem- 
bers of the National Guard would not respond. Let us 
consider the facts. 

The National Defense Act became effective on the 3rd 
day of June, 1916. About the 16th of June, or thirteen days 
after it became a law, the President of the United States 
called on the governors of the several states for the services 
of the National Guard for Mexican border duty, and in 
response to that call more than one hundred and thirty 
thousand men dropped their civilian pursuits, reported at 
their armories and were sent to mobilization camps as fast 
as transportation could be provided. From the moment they 
reported at the mobilization camps the authority of the 
governor automatically ceased, and they became subject to 
the authority of the President through officers detailed by 
the War Department. One hundred thousand of the men 
were sent to Texas practically at once, and the balance im- 
patiently waited at the various mobilization camps. These 
facts are incontrovertible, because they actually occurred, 
and they completely disprove the claim with respect to con- 
flict of authority between the President and the governors 
and the assertion that the Guard would not respond to a call. 

Now, what are the further facts, on which I speak only 
from the experience of my regiment. From the moment 
we reached the mobilization camp at Springfield, we were 
directly and solely under the control of officers of the 
United States Army. We had, as National Guardsmen, 
sworn to obey the commands of the President of the United 
States, but in the ceremony of mustering us into the service 
of the United States a second oath was administered. Every 
man except eight bandsmen took that oath, and asked no 
questions as to his obligation under the oath or the length 
or character of the service. When we were on border duty 
on the Rio Grande, certain authorized appointments in the 
commissioned personnel of the regiment were made and it 
became necessary that the appointees be mustered into the 
federal service, as we had been mustered in at Springfield 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 23 

I was directed to send our muster rolls to the chief muster- 
ing officer at Fort Brown, and after a week or ten days of 
investigation I was told that the officers could not be mus- 
tered in. The chief mustering officer said, "You were given 
the wrong oath at Springfield and you have no status." I 
replied that we were mustered in under an oath given us 
by the United States Army officer in charge of our muster in, 
to which he replied that, be that as it might, we had taken 
the wrong oath and therefore had no status, and not only 
could we not muster in any more officers, but we had several 
more than we were entitled to. He said, 'You are neither 
National Guard, Organized Militia or National Defense Act 
troops." I pointed out that we had been under exclusive 
control and command of the War Department since June 
16, 1916, that we had been doing military duty on the banks 
of the Rio Grande for several months. All of this he al- 
lowed was true, but even that would not invest us with 
status. In other words even though thirteen days had 
elapsed from the time the National Defense Act became a 
law it had not been put into force and eflfect so far as the 
National Guard was concerned, and we had been called 
out by the President under the power conferred on him 
by the Constitution, and not under the National Defense 
Act. More than one hundred thousand National Guardsmen 
responded to the call and performed efficiently the duties 
to which they were assigned. Does that look like failure? 
Which is the greater failure, the record of the regular army 
made under the National Defense Act, or that of the Na- 
tional Guard in response to the call for border duty? 

Let us remember that the National Guard has not up to 
this time been either governed or trained under the National 
Defense Act. Who knows what it will do for us or with us ? 
For all that we know it may produce everything we hope, 
but it should have a chance to be tried out. It is being 
interpreted by unfriendly men and unfriendly minds and it 
should not be judged and sentenced until it has at least 
been tried. Ah, they say, look at the huge sum of money 



24 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

wasted on paying the National Guard. This "monumental 
failure" of one hundred and thirty thousand men, partly 
trained though it was, was sufficiently trained so that in a 
comparatively short time the greater part of its units could 
perform all the duties that were required of them as second 
line troops. 

With respect to the pay of the National Guard, the 
Government is in exactly the same situation as the man 
who complained to a friend one morning: "I don't know 
what to do about my wife. Every morning she begs and 
pleads for money until I am about crazy." "What does she 
do with all the money ?" asked the friend. "I don't know," 
was the reply, "I haven't given her any yet." 

Not a single dollar has been paid to the National Guard 
as compensation under the National Defense Act. Ah, but 
they say, your men won't enlist again. They are refusing 
to take the new oath. The men took one oath when they 
enlisted in the National Guard, and another when they were 
mustered into the United States service. Some of them 
think it is almost as many oaths as ought to be administered, 
inasmuch as they are ready to carry out their contracts of 
enlistment under either oath. But I don't know what they 
will do, because we have been unable to get any enlistment 
blanks, although we have made many requests for them. 

When the First Illinois Cavalry returned from the Rio 
Grande it was sent to Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Six or seven 
army officers were detailed for the muster out of the regi- 
ment. This ceremony held twelve hundred men in camp 
under Government pay and subsistence for four full weeks, 
not to speak of the loss to employers, who were paying the 
men, and to the men themselves. And this was not under 
the National Defense Act. 

So we find that while the regular army has failed to 
secure the troops provided by the National Defense Act, 
the National Guard, which did not have the benefits of the 
act, produced over one hundred and thirty thousand men 
for duty in a national crisis which was supposed to be im- 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 25 

minent. Ah, but it is said, look at the men who should 
not have gone. Think of the suffering of the deserted wives 
and children. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps there were 
men who, in view of their responsibilities, should not have 
been subjected to the burden. I think that of my regiment 
perhaps fifteen per cent might well have been left at home. 
Most of the dependent applications, however, did not come 
from wives, but from parents, many of whom were beyond 
the pale of ordinary dependency. As a matter of fact one 
lawyer practicing in Chicago, whose father is rated at three- 
quarters of a million, secured his discharge on dependency 
grounds. 

We are all agreed that some stable form of adequate 
military defense must be devised, some plan by which the 
burdens of service are equally distributed. 

The first thing we require is a regular army which shall 
be equal to the first line troops of any country of which we 
may become the adversary. Such troops cannot be secured 
by magic. They can only be produced by hard, constant, 
continuous training. We should first determine how large 
a regular army we want, and it should be large enough to 
handle a situation such as confronted Washington when the 
National Guard was called to the Mexican border, and leave 
enough men so that our coast defenses and insular posses- 
sions will not be entirely denuded of soldiers. 

Having determined the question of the size of the first 
line, we are at once face to face with the fact that, even in 
the numbers now authorized, we have been unable to get 
soldiers for the regular army, and we must look for a 
method of obtaining them. One of two courses seems to 
be inevitable. We must make service in the army a com- 
petitive occupation with civil pursuits, or we must have 
conscription. 

If we adopt the former course we are confronted first 
by the danger of making our regular military establishment 
a mercenary army, an army of Hessians, who are stimulated 
by no patriotic impulses, by no love of country, but by the 



26 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

money that is in it; and second; by an expense bill which 
will be so large that it might make general training im- 
possible. 

If we resort to conscription we are threatened with the 
troubles which other countries have encountered which have 
attempted this course. Whether the agitation against con- 
scription will become so virulent as to seriously hamper 
and, perhaps, destroy the growing sentiment for general 
mihtary training and service, is a guess which only the 
future can solve. 

What comes then? Some of the proponents of the 
many plans for general or universal training or service, or 
of partial training or service, are apparently blind to the 
fact that we cannot maintain an army large enough for all 
exigencies, and that back of the first line there must be 
a second line that has been organizationally trained, which 
may be instantly placed in the field and quickly fitted to 
support the first line troops if the circumstances require. 

There are those who advocate the elimination of the 
National Guard as an element of national defense, and they 
urge as a reason that the expenditure of money on the 
National Guard means that the general military training of 
the youth of the country will be interfered with by reason 
of the expenditures necessary to maintain it. 

Let us assume that the National Guard is eliminated and 
that we have a regular army only large enough for our ordi- 
nary peace purposes. I understand there is no agreement 
among those who are active in these matters as to just the 
length of time that men should be trained. For example, 
in a speech before the National Security League, Captain 
Cosby, according to the newspaper reports, proposed as 
follows : 

"The actual service consists of only four years' 
work between the ages of 18 and 23, during the first 
of which the young man has two months' intensive 
training in camp and two weeks in each of the other 
three years, making only fourteen weeks actual serv- 
ice during four years." 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 27 

Colonel Roosevelt, on the other hand, advocates universal 
service as distinguished from universal training. 

General S. M. B. Young, U. S. A., urges a year of con- 
tinuous training. 

Suppose an actual situation arose such as Washington 
believed existed on the Mexican border, or suppose an 
emergency were to arise on the coast line of the United 
States. How long would it take to bring these young men 
together and to organize them into effective units? The 
organizational training would take longer than individual 
training, and without organizational training they would be 
useless. And what would we or our enemies be doing 
while we were constructing our organizations. If we can 
produce in the United States a quarter of a million organized 
troops, such as went to the Mexican border, with the train- 
ing which is provided by the National Defense Act, amplified 
or increased as may be found necessary, we will have a 
second line force that can be made first line troops in a very 
short time. 

We then come to consider how many young men we can 
safely and adequately handle in a general training or service 
scheme. The extent of the training and the number to be 
trained, and the method of selecting that number, must be 
determined so that the financial and economic burden shall 
be not so great as to endanger continued military training. 

When a young man goes into training he must be treated 
as an individual. His military capacity must not be de- 
veloped at the expense of his morals or manhood. He 
should not be made merely a part of a military machine. 
Only so many men ought to be taken as can be handled 
with advantage and safety to themselves and to the country. 

Manifestly we cannot embark in this most important 
enterprise — the most critical adventure in which this coun- 
try has ever embarked — unless we know what we are doing. 
Before we build a building, we must be certain of our 
foundation. Our foundational trouble is our army organiza- 
tion. Whether it is due to bureau rule, or what not, I state 



28 COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO 

no opinion, but the fact remains that a general staff that 
is subject to continual changes, a new chief of staff every 
four years, and a war college that changes every now and 
then, with no definite fixed determinations of policy and 
procedure, cannot produce a military system worth having. 
The first thing we must do, therefore, is to make the organ- 
ization of the directing element stable and permanent, so 
that a policy, when once determined, shall be wisely and 
logically prosecuted. 

How shall we decide what course to pursue? What 
plan shall we adopt? Every organization has its own solu- 
tion ; army officers, magazine writers and many others have 
written tomes and tomes of solutions. And if we adopt any 
one of them, who shall be responsible for failure? This is a 
national question, and it means a mobilization of the patriot- 
ism and the resources and the capacity and the brains of 
this country. 

Officers of the army, no matter how capable or experi- 
enced they may be, are not able to formulate such a policy 
as will properly provide for the mobilization of the elements 
necessary for the nation's defense or the training of its 
civilian population. This involves the social, economic and 
political elements of our population. The strategic and 
tactical features and the actual training may well be left 
to soldiers, but the solution of the problem itself is much 
greater than its single military feature. 

Manifestly no military legislation that is worth while can 
be produced at the present short session of Congress. Let a 
commission be appointed by the President of the United 
States ; to consist of officers of the army of the United States 
of experience and judgment, of members of both houses of 
Congress, representatives of the Organized Militia of the 
United States, and a sufficient number of civilians adequately 
to represent the social and industrial life of the country. 
Let this commission during the year 1917 pursue an ex- 
haustive investigation into every phase of our military and 
defense problems. Let it make a comprehensive report to 



MILITARY PREPAREDNESS 29 

Congress in December, 1917, which will make recommenda- 
tions for specific legislation. We have tariff commissions, 
and currency commissions, and commissions to investigate 
and control everything imaginable, except the one subject 
which is most important to our national life and of which 
we know least. 

The recommendation of a commission of brave, patriotic, 
unselfish men of character will command the respect and 
confidence of the country, and their recommendation will 
have the support of the people. It is a time for investiga- 
tion and consideration. We cannot do anything without the 
support of the country. We are not entitled to the support 
of the country unless the programme which is presented is 
the calm, cool result of the judgment of men who have 
given it their careful, unremitting, unselfish study and atten- 
tion, and whose capacity and patriotic impulses and purposes 
cannot be questioned. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




